THE LION KING (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

DIRECTOR

Jon Favreau

WRITERS

Jeff Nathanson (Screenplay)

Brenda Chapman (Story)

Irene Mecchi (Characters)

Jonathan Roberts (Characters)

Linda Woolverton (Characters)

CASTS

Donald Glover, Beyoncé, James Earl Jones, Chiwetel Ejiofor, John Oliver, John Kani,Seth Rogen, Billy Eichner

GENRE

Animation, Adventure, Drama

PLOT (from IMDB)

After the murder of his father, a young lion prince flees his kingdom only to learn the true meaning of responsibility and bravery.

REVIEW

A semi live-adaptation remake, a photo-realistic take, on the classic animated Disney movie "The Lion King". If you've seen the recent films which Disney had released and the trend they are doing, you know that a live adaptation of Lion King is inevitable and this would be the next thing that they're going to do. The next question is, would a live treatment of the classic animated movie would benefit from it? I will say that though it improves a lot especially to the visual effects and the looks of our characters however, putting it so close to reality was such a bad thing to do, here's why.

The original movie was just a masterpiece and one of the many reasons why that film is so beloved are the emotions flowing from it. Obviously, if you're going to convert something animated especially an animal character and try to closely resembled it to the real life animal, there are going to be problems from it especially restraining the said character to convey more feelings or emotions. It just wasn't the same from the original. Let's take this one particular scene, Mufasa's death. That specific scene was just a tearjerker moment and watching it as a kid was truly a heartbreaking scene. Seeing it in the animated movie, you could clearly see all the emotions Simba was feeling at that time. All the guilt, the sadness and longingness, all of them were successfully portrayed by putting all the emotions to Simba's face. However, when seeing it in this live adaptation, it was just watching a lion losing his father like you typically see in a Nat-Geo documentary series. It's the same scene and same characters involved yet it really lacks the emotion and heart from the original movie. I think that having it closely resembled to the real-life animals really made the movie feel so stale and pale and they could have followed what they did from the Jungle Book live-adaptation of instead having it as a photo-realistic, they could have opted out using a motion-capture. Well, I'm no expert on this field but based on the previous motion-capture movies that I've seen especially from the Jungle Book live-adaptation, there were emotions coming through those characters especially from their faces.

The next thing that I didn't like about this new iteration is that some of the original characters were being left out or their portrayal were drastically changed. Rafiki's wise yet playful take from the original changed into this wise and serious Rafiki. I'm not really sure what was the point of changing his character eventhough that his character was already having a less screentime even from the original yet our main character like Simba, didn't have anything new take to his character and it was still the same Simba from the original. I didn't really understand why they removed that aspect of Rafiki's character because to me, it's one of the iconic characters from the original movie. Voice character wise, it was really closely resembled from the original. As much as I heavily respect Chiwetel Ejiofor as an actor, I really wished they have tried in bringing back Jeremy Iron's original voice as Scar. I was glad that they brought back James Earl Jones voicing again as Mufasa, but I damn I really wanted them to get Jeremy Iron voicing back again Scar. He was so damn good from the original and again as a kid, his voice really stapled to me as Scar.

The good side of this new adaptation though are the visuals of it. There's no denying that in terms of technicality, this movie really blew me away. I would not be surprised if this movie will be nominated and even win the Visual Effects category from any of the prestigious awards show. Timon and Pumba's character was the definitely the scene stealer. They have added some modern take to their character which also made the movie much more fun. Also, the songs were just as beautiful from the original. Some of the songs scenes were really awkward to watch because the lions were just so realistically looking but I guess to factor in the nostalgia as well, I definitely got goosebumps from one of those iconic songs.

OVERALL

I liked that Disney are remaking their iconic animated movies to a live-adaptation versions because it puts a new perspective to it. Some of them were really good and enjoyable and some of them definitely didn't work out. As much as I hate to say this but 2019's Lion King wasn't a good movie. It's an okay movie for me at least. I really was disappointed that it didn't have the same emotions and same heart from the original. If you have watched the original, I would suggest to pass on this. You could still see it if you want just for the nostalgic factor especially from the songs but don't expect too much likeness from the original.